THE New York Times’ man agement was dealt a setback in its effort to cut staff after the troubled newspaper company lost an arbitration hearing on allegations it tried to rig the union’s seniority rules in order to lay off workers.

In a bid to make firing easier, the Times management had been arguing that if a unionized member switched departments at the paper, the member’s seniority would reset to zero at the new department.

The Newspaper Guild told its members Monday that arbitrator Martin Scheinman rejected that notion.

Instead, Scheinman ruled in favor of the Guild, supporting the view “that seniority used to determine Newsroom employees’ vulnerability to layoffs must be measured by their service in the entire News Department.”

“They lost, as they should have on that one,” said one veteran editor, who is not in the union.

As a result, total length of service will determine seniority.

The ruling comes as Times Executive Editor Bill Keller looks to ax 26 editorial jobs in order to reach the company’s goal of eliminating 100 positions. Last week, 74 people volunteered to accept buyouts, including several longtime journalists, such as business reporter Geraldine Fabrikant and political reporter Stephen Labaton.

The paper is looking to complete its job cuts by year-end.

“After accepting the buyout applications of 74 news-side employees (60 Guild and 14 non-Guild) last week, Times management is expected on Tuesday to target additional newsroom employees for involuntary layoffs to reach its goal of 100 job cuts,” the Guild told its members in a memo. “The numbers might change if people change their minds and revoke their buyout application.”

As of yesterday, no additional Times newsroom staff had gotten pink slips. However, one insider said the process could start today and be wrapped up by Dec. 23 — just two days before Christmas.

A Times spokeswoman said, “We are not commenting or offering any details — names, updates or numbers — on the staff reduction, except to restate that our goal is to reduce the newsroom staff by 100 people before the end of the year.”

Same stripes

Golf Digest said it will not drop Tiger Woods as its “playing editor,” even though he is embroiled in a sex scandal that has caused him to take an indefinite leave from professional golf.

In the weeks since the scandal broke, consulting firm Accenture has dropped Woods, and other have stopped running his ads as they reevaluate their relationship with the megastar.

But the Condé Nast-owned golfing title is standing firm.

“Golf Digest has had a long-standing relationship with Tiger Woods to provide instruction articles for the magazine, and we do not have any plans to change that,” said a spokeswoman.

One source estimated that when all the tie-ins and appearance fees are added, the exclusive contract with Golf Digest — which blocks him from posing or conducting lengthy exclusive interviews with other sports magazines — is worth up to $3 million a year.

La famiglia

Condé Nast Chairman S.I. Newhouse may have scrapped his company’s posh holiday luncheon at the Four Seasons earlier this month in exchange for a nondescript, late-afternoon cocktail reception, but his once vaunted “Italian Guys” still gathered last Friday at Da Silvano for their traditional pre-Christmas luncheon.

The gathering survived the death of one of its co-founders, former Condé Nast CEO Steve Florio, who passed away in De cember 2007.

There was no gathering that year, but the boys did get together in April for a posthumous toast and broke bread again at Christmas 2008.

This year, Tom Florio, a Condé Nast senior vice president and Steve Florio’s younger broker, stepped in as host.

One attendee, Ron Galotti, the former Vogue publisher and inspiration behind the Mr. Big character on “Sex and the City,” returned for the second year in a row. Galotti had taken a break from the lunches after Steve Florio pushed him out of Condé Nast, and Galotti moved his family to Vermont.

Though under Tom Florio the tradition continues, there are some changes. For starters, there’s no more cigar smoking, and the drinking was a little more subdued, though the $1,000 bottles of wine did not disappear.

“We’re getting a little older,” said Galotti, “It was one martini and a glass of wine.”

He and Florio spent the weekend at Florio’s Sag Harbor, LI, home.

Also on hand was Architectural Digest Publisher Giulio Capua, who had picked up the nickname “Pots & Pans” from the group when he landed a publisher’s job at the now-defunct Gourmet.

Phil Guarascio, once one of the most powerful advertising executives in the US when he was the chief ad buyer for General Motors, also returned to the scene, as did honorary Italian Richard “Mad Dog” Beckman, who runs Condé’s Fairchild Publications.

Word is the attendees tried to recruit Vanity Fair Publisher Ed Menicheschi as a new member, but he was a no-show. keith.kelly@nypost.com